The Elephant in the Room

Short Story by Jasper Fforde

The character of a zoo often reflect their locale: Regent’s Park in London, with award-winning animal enclosures designed by architects of distinction, but curiously, not much good for animals; Edinburgh which would benefit from a funicular railway; and Longleat, where a full tank of fuel is a prerequisite unless you want to be stuck out all night, with lion and hyena licking the chrome off your hubcaps.

And then there’s Colchester. I wasn’t aware of any peculiarities when I visited and was there, as always, for the elephant. I adore elephant and thank the extraordinarily lucky quirk of temporal fate that I was born into a time that still had them. Elephant in zoos are difficult to get up close and personal with, aside from Woburn where you are permitted to touch the grey flanks of a female called Tina. The skin, I can report, is warm, rough as tree bark and with hair like a yard broom, but the elephant itself smells rather coquettishly of hot hay. But Colchester, I had learned, was the Holy Grail of meeting elephants: You can feed them. So that’s why I was here.

Not wanting to have this rare delight over too soon, I decided to limber up by feeding the giraffe, which entails a walk up a tall platform. Their heads may look quite small from the ground, but up close it is the size of a small scooter. After holding up my proffered gift of a stick with leaves on it, a massive blue tongue popped out, wrapped itself around my gift, and with a deft pull I am left holding a stick without leaves on it. The giraffe, confident our relationship had run its course after this one short dinner date, switched its attention to a six year old from Bolton.

Suitably warmed up I moved to the queue for the elephant and patiently awaited my turn, presuming the elephant food I will be given would be a square the size of Rubik’s and of carrot or cucumber, given the elephant only has a nose - their trunk, as we experts prefer to call them - to pick it up. I was surprised to be handed a piece of carrot the size of a pea, and wondered whether this wasn’t some sort of cruel joke, like expecting a watchmaker to work in boxing gloves.

But no, when my time came I was regarded with abstract interest by the large elephant eye, and the small square of carrot was lifted from my palm with infinite dexterity. Dazzled by this, I quickly reversed my jacket and assumed a Dutch accent so I was not barred from the ‘one feed per guest’ rule, and went around again. Seven assumed identities later I was eventually rumbled and sent packing, my heart warmed of spirit and my palm warmed with elephant snot.

A curious idea then struck me. I had, by the merest chance, a DNA kit in my car as I was keen to see if I really was the lovechild of Clement Attlee as my insane mother had claimed, but I instead scraped off the elephant snot and sent it to the DNA lab, wondering what would be the result. I was very surprised indeed when three weeks later I was arrested on suspicion of stealing a Vermeer ‘and other valuable works of art’ from a Museum in Boston.

It was, I learned, the first positive lead the police had welcomed since that fateful night of March 1990, and they soon made me aware what they were after.

“We’re not really interested in Rembrandt’s The Storm of the Sea of Galilee,” said DCI Wilks, who was part of the Metropolitan Police’s Art Recovery Squad, “pleasing to the eye though that is. No, we’re really after Vermeer’s The Concert. We have your DNA there, in the building that night, and even if you weren’t the draughtsman behind this little tickle, you will know who was. We want names.”

Entreaties of innocence fell on deaf ears, and blaming the DNA match on an elephant was met with the incredulity I had expected: “After all,” they reasoned with impeccable logic, “what would an elephant want with a Vermeer?” We had a break after that, and I was taken to a holding cell in which there was someone waiting. She was large, and bulky, and dressed in a well-cut trouser suit, raincoat and a fedora set at an angle of impressive jauntiness. When she spoke it was in a deep nasally murmur, and she smelled of hot hay.

“Someone told me you liked elephant,” she said, consulting a large pocket-book. “You’ve visited every elephant in the UK over the past nine years, and that’s significant.”

“How did you know that?”

“We never forget a face. The thing is, Jasper - can I call you Jasper? Is that we’ve got some plans in the cooker for a little bit of what we call ‘biosphere management change’ and Geoffrey’s penchant for Vermeer might derail all that.”

“What .. sort of management change?”

She sighed a deep oboe-sounding sigh.

“Look, you put yourselves in charge of the planet but failed to live up to promise. So there’s going to be some changes. Everything non-human has signed up. Even the slugs.’

This did indeed sound serious, although what part in the revolution slugs might play was anyone’s guess.

“I .. why are you telling me this?”

“We’re not 100% quite ready yet. And so long as you bang on about elephant being involved in the Boston art heist, the sooner someone’s going to check your story, and when they do, well, the dominoes might begin to fall. So we need you to take one for the Big Guy.’

‘The Big Guy?’

‘Yeah. Him. Tell them you did it, you passed all the art on, you don’t know anything, and that you kept Manet’s Chez Tortoni which is behind the cold water tank in your loft. You’ll do a few years, low security, open prison. It’s not a big deal.”

“But Manet’s Chez Tortoni isn’t behind my cold water tank.”

My visitor stood up, ready to go.

“It is now. What’s it going to be?”

“Do I get anything out of this?”

She knocked on the door of the cell to be let out, then turned back.

“You’ll be spared when it comes to the management change. We look after the people who look after us. And we never forget. Deal?”

I was left alone for another hour and when the interrogation restarted I confessed everything, and led them to the Manet which they were very glad to see returned. I said I knew nothing more, was just a small cog, pleaded guilty and got six years, and was out in three.

The ‘change in management’ hasn’t happened yet, and I don’t believe it ever shall. The inclusion of the slugs should have been the red flag, but perhaps I just wanted to believe that there was someone looking out for the planet. I still love elephant, but I’m now more cautious and learned this about the Pachyderm Underworld: if you are ever implicated in elephant-related crime, think very carefully before you decide to ‘take one for the Big Guy’.

© Jasper Fforde, March 2023. Originally written for the JodiWorld Programme

Jasper Fforde debuted on the NYT best seller list with ‘The Eyre Affair’ in 2001. Since then he has written sixteen other novels which some people say are amusing, satirical, and diverting. For balance, others say they are nothing of the sort. More info at www.jasperfforde.com

Latest publication: ‘Red Side Story’ USA/Canada and UK, 2024.

Next Publication: ‘Dark Reading Matter’ UK and Canada/USA, 2026

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